Biohuman

A week passed after Lee Seng broke. Lee Seng spent most of his time training. With Akio gone for most of the day, Lee Seng split his training between power and physical training. Lee Seng spent most of his time focused on melee-based training when it came to his power. He spent most of his training extending and holding the Dark Matter along the blade at different points.

Lee Seng was dripping with sweat. He held the bokken with his left hand and the monochrome Dark Matter fully engulfed the wooden sword. His breath was a bit unsteady. His eyes were shut and he could feel the Dark Matter in the blade. His concentration snapped and he let go of the blade. It rattled on the ground and Lee Seng heard the room ding.

"Time held is at 8 minutes, 42 seconds." The room AI spoke. Lee Seng gasped for air and threw his sweaty head backwards. Sweat dripped off of him and his shirt was soaked.

"I'm closer to 10 minutes, but he said 15 minutes would be the bare minimum." Lee Seng noted. "Ahh, this is tiring." He let himself fall onto his back and stared at the high ceiling lights above. He pulled his phone out and glanced at it.

6:58pm

He lowered his hand and grunted as he rolled onto his belly. He slowly pushed himself up and off onto the ground. His stomach grumbled and he made his way towards the exit. Lee Seng grew in the last week, but it always seemed like he was short of the actual goal. He was diligent in his training as his older siblings, the Kato twins, always told him to work hard. He reflected to himself of the past week and came to the conclusion that he wouldn't have time to hit the fifteen minute mark.

'I can do ten ranged attacks before my body is taxed with the Negative. I've been basically training to lower the half-hour Negative and to evenly distribute my Dark Matter. I haven't seen any progress, but that's to be expected with the Negative. Nothing happens in a week like my power improvement.' Lee Seng noted. He grabbed a towel on a rack near the door and stepped out of the gym room. The cold air greeted him and he happily welcomed it. He wiped the sweat off of him and let the towel sit on his head.

He turned left and walked into the men's locker room/restroom area. He skipped most of the lockers near the front and stopped at Locker 28. He stripped himself naked and threw the sweaty clothes in a empty bag and grabbed a small bag full of shower toiletries and quickly made his way towards the shower.

He walked into the first stall and pulled his toiletries out and set them down before turning on the shower. He yelped when the cold water touched his body and moved backwards. He stuck his hand out, feeling the cold water. The sound of doors opened in the distance and he turned to look.

"Man, what a great work out." Man 1 exclaimed.

"Yeah, it was great." Man 2 chuckled.

"I wish I could hit the gym more often. I've been stressed handling all of the lab work as of late."

"Don't even get me started about that. Dr. Chang has been on our asses for the last two weeks!"

"Tell me about it. I think since the incident with his son, he's been focused on him. It's gonna go back to when he was obsessed with his son and wouldn't let him outta his sight."

The lockers opened and the two men began to strip naked.

"I feel bad for the Creator's Son, though."

"Why?"

"He's probably tired of his own father pulling strings. Plus not to mention, his mothe--"

Man 2 punched man 1 and scolded him.

"Don't mention her."

The two lockers closed and footsteps started over towards where Lee Seng was. Lee Seng snapped out of it and quickly hopped into the shower, pulling the curtain shut. The two men walked over, realizing someone was actually in the locker room with them.

"Oh, someone's here. I thought I heard the shower going." Man 2 noticed.

"Eh, they probably didn't here anything," Man 1 said. Man 1 nudged at Man 2. "Just take your shower and let's go. I wanna go home."

"Alright, alright!"

The two hopped into separate stalls and the showers turned on. Lee Seng stood underneath the slightly colder lukewarm water lost in the conversation that happened. His agitation grew and he quickly threw his hands into his hair and roughly ruffled it.

'Ah, enough!' Lee Seng thought to himself. He slapped himself. The slap was harder and louder than he thought it would be and he quickly pulled the shampoo and started to clean himself. 'It doesn't matter. Just shower and get the hell outta here.'

Ten minutes later

Lee Seng finished his shower routine and shut the shower off. He slowly turned around, making sure his tail didn't hit anything and reached out of the shower stall for his towel. He reached around for awhile and realized he forgot to bring one.

"Crap." He muttered. He grabbed the shower toiletry bag and dumped his shower supplies in it. He heard both of the men shut their water off and grab their towels. Lee Seng quickly pulled open shower curtain and made his way towards his locker. He quickly and delicately tried to not slip and pulled a tower off the rack near the showers. He quickly threw it over him and made his way to his locker. He dropped the shower toiletries on the bench and started to dry himself.

"Ah, a nice shower after a work out feels great!" Man 2 exclaimed.

"Yeah, I can't wait to go home." Man 1 replied. The two made their way towards Lee Seng and he desperately tried to pay them no mind. The two rounded the corner and noticed Lee Seng and Man 2 gently hit man 1.

"Isn't that Lee Seng?" He whispered.

"Yeah, just get changed. He probably didn't hear us." Man 1 leaned in and whispered. The two made their way to the lockers directly behind Lee Seng and opened it. Lee Seng finished drying himself off and opened his locker. He pulled out his duffle bag and dug for his boxers. He started to slip on his clothes and put everything into his duffle bag and zipped it up. He shut the locker and headed for the exit.

"He seems like he's in a rush." Man 2 whispered. Man 1 swatted man 2 in the head and shushed him. "What? It's not like he heard me." Lee Seng threw both of the towels into the dirty bin and turned his head towards the both of them. He opened his mouth to say something and then shook his head.

'It's not worth it. Just leave.' He exited and made his way towards the middle of the large gym lobby, turning left. 'Only four more days until the exam. I should figure out what I'm going to do with my gravity powers when it comes to melee combat.'

The next day, Lee Seng followed the same routine. He got up around 8am, ate a small breakfast, did his physical routine, took a shower, ate lunch, lounged around for a bit until 3pm and then headed towards the gym. Akio gave Lee Seng a heads up he would be there today for training.

"Heading to the gym. I don't think I'll have anymore time to hold the Dark Matter for 15 minutes. I'll have to learn how to use my powers as a Fighter." Lee Seng texted Akio. "I got some ideas I want to try out, but I'm not sure if they'll work." He hit send and quickly made his way towards the other side of the huge building with his duffle bag.

Akio stood in the middle of the the gym with a row of bokkens. He started his stretches with his legs when Lee Seng jogged into the room.

"I didn't think you'd get here before me." Lee Seng commented. He set his bag down on the bench near the door and jogged over. He began to stretch with Akio, mimicking the stretches. The two began to stretch in earnest while catching up.

"Where did you go this time?" Lee Seng asked. The two were sitting on the floor, legs spread, feet touching each other and holding each other's hands. Akio pulled Lee Seng towards him and Lee Seng lowered towards Akio.

"The Adventurer's Guild needed help with running a mission. I went four hours out for the mission. It's strange to go four hours anywhere. Twenty-five long hard years of fighting the unknown... It's strange we're slowly getting closer to the old ways." Akio thought aloud. Akio and Lee Seng switched positions. Lee Seng slowly rose as Akio bent inwards.

"Didn't it used to be really dangerous for you guys to even go from the lab to the city?" Lee Seng asked. The lab and the city were a couple hours apart, so he couldn't imagine how they could travel from place to place with the amount of dangers Lee Seng always heard about.

"Yeah, it was hard for awhile, but we thankfully were able to clear everything around the laboratory with ease. Maintaining a direct route to and from the city was the goal. Now that the Adventurer's Guild is recognized all over, it's easier to coordinate and claim old roads and small rural towns." Akio trailed off as Lee Seng released his pull. The two retracted their legs and began to stretch their arms.

"I would say flying places is safe, but it seems more dangerous now with the creatures in the sky. Regular birds altered and changed into bigger birds. Some causing more danger than others. Regular animals we'd eat like cows, pigs, and so forth, grew bigger and gained more meat from it but they also had different species come from them. Minotaurs and cannibal pig men. It's strange that the fantasy I used to read about back in the day really became a reality. Reality is a scary place, but that's why we train." Akio monologued.

"Train to fight off the unknown, document the unknown to be known and understand the world as it is now." Lee Seng quoted. "I can't believe the world used to be so connected. You could go anywhere with less 'scary' risks than today."

"Times have definitely changed, but it's definitely gotten more interesting. Complicated yet interesting." Akio commented. "Alright, stretches complete? Let's see if you can pull of some moves with the bokken." Akio clapped. He grabbed two bokkens and tossed one towards Lee Seng. The two spun their bokkens and Akio grinned.